Tag Archives: winter data

It was touch and go for the Erebus crew this year. Canceled, uncanceled, canceled again, and now, finally, the field season is a go for team G-081 heading to Erebus volcano, Antarctica. Access to Erebus is through the largest base in Antarctica, McMurdo, which is run by the Americans. Our Cambridge crew get to the volcano via a collaboration with New Mexico Tech located in Soccorro, NM, USA. They’re funded by the National Science Foundation. The US government shut down meant that this year’s field season almost didn’t happen. At one point, the NSF even issued a press release claiming the Erebus work had been shelved. Finally, after much confusion, our team got word that they were clear to head for the ice and up to the camp on Erebus.

Did Our Camera Survive the Harsh Antarctic Winter?
Volcanofile Nial Peters has been on pins and needles all southern hemisphere winter — he left an infrared camera perched atop the rim of Erebus, pointing at the lava lake that sits in the Erebus crater. Details of the specially designed camera system are in a paper now open for discussion in the journal Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems. The crew left the camera with the hopes that it would survive through the entire winter season. If so, we’d have the longest data set from Erebus ever. The camera’s power system was registered as working for some months after last year’s field season was over, until one day it stopped. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean the camera stopped running.

“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Nial. “We know the power lasted for as long as it normally does. The power stopped when the sun went down”. Solar power is a main source of energy for the systems at Erebus, which is fine during the 24-hour-a-day sun in the summer months. In the winter, power systems rely on wind turbines. The timing of the shut down, Nial explains, indicates that the wind turbines may be damaged. We haven’t seen the power return since it switched off, but that could indicate a number of things. It could be that the power came back on but that the telemetry, which tells us if we have power, never returned. If that’s the case, the camera could still be running, but we won’t know until we go and have a look ourselves. There is also a seismometer attached to the telemetry system. If that’s damaged, it could simply be a case of the seismometer not registering any voltage even if the system is running fine. Again, we won’t know what happened until someone goes up to have a look.

Nial Peters with his thermal camera system at the summit of Erebus.

Erebus Activity Revving Up?
While we were all worrying about whether the Erebus season would be canceled this year, Erebus decided to put on a nice show for us via the our seismic stations. It looks as though the volcano may have entered a highly active phase, and it may even be throwing out volcanic bombs generated by explosive volcanic eruptions from the lake. Seismic data streaming in from Erebus kept us all on our toes. But, again, we won’t know exactly what’s been going on until the team get there and have a look for themselves.

Another explosive day at Erebus. The small earthquakes are the result of explosive eruptions. The eruption near the bottom of the chart is one of the largest seen in October. The large teleseism is the magnitude 7.3 quake off the coast of Honshu, Japan.

An exciting season lined up…
In addition to all the exciting science that happens on Erebus each year, this year promises to be an exciting one. With the activity gearing up and the possibility of our first winter data set from the volcano, there’s a lot to look forward to! Watch this space for updates from the field!